CAROL MARINELLI - Australian Affairs - Tempted - Tempted by Dr. Morales

He was grateful.

Juan looked up at Olive and remembered the last time he’d had an accident. He had been lying on his side, begging bystanders not to touch him, not to roll him, not to move him.

It’s not like last time.

Over and over he told that to himself and held onto the scream that was building.

He’d explain things to the paramedics, Juan decided, closing his eyes and hearing the faint wail of a siren far in the distance. He tried to calm himself, but there was an unease building as he thought of the paramedics’ response when he told them about his previous injuries. An appalling thought occurred when he tried to work out his location and the nearest hospital.

He did not want Cate to know.

Juan did not want his past impinging on the little time they’d had, yet he could hear the paramedics making their way over to him and knew that it was about to.

‘Juan!’ Louise smiled down at him, shone a torch in his eyes as she spoke to him. ‘What happened to you?’

He told her. ‘It was a simple accident. I have only grazed my shoulder. I’m not going to hospital.’

‘Let’s just take a look at you, Juan.’ Louise was calm. ‘Were you knocked out?’

‘No.’

‘How did you land?’

‘On my shoulder.’

Her hands were feeling around his neck. ‘Do you have any pain in your neck?’

‘None.’ He felt her fingers still on the scar and then gently explore it.

‘Is there any past history that we need to know about, Juan?’

He stared up at the sky at the tops of the trees and he absolutely did not want to reveal anything, except only a fool would lie now.

‘I had a spinal injury.’

‘Okay.’ Louise waited for more information.

‘Eighteen months ago.’

He just stared up at the trees as the routine accident suddenly turned serious. ‘I’m fine, Louise.’ He went to sit up but hands were holding his head.

‘Just stay still, Juan.’

‘My neck is stable, better than before…’

‘What injury did you have?’

‘I had an incomplete fracture to C5 and C6.’

He lay there as they carefully removed the helmet and he was placed in a hard collar, and the spinal board was brought from the ambulance.

‘I don’t want to go to Bayside,’ Juan said as they lifted him in.

‘I’m sorry, Juan. We need to take you to the nearest Emergency.’

‘Nothing is wrong.’

‘We have to take all precautions. You know that.’ Louise cared only for the health of her patients and pulled out the words that were needed. ‘I’m following protocol.’

He couldn’t argue with that.

The best that he could hope for was that Cate might be on her break, that he could somehow slip in and out of the department unnoticed by her. She might even be holed up in her office.

Except she wasn’t Christine.

She wasn’t like anyone.

Cate was like no one he had ever met.

Juan stared up at the ceiling of another ambulance and said it over and over again to himself.

It’s not like last time.

CATE REGRETTED THAT she’d had to ask Harry, she truly did, but she had never been more grateful about how approachable Harry was than when he came in to examine young Timothy.

The boy was, in fairness to the paediatricians, markedly more distressed by the time Harry arrived. Harry took some bloods, called the lab and asked for the tests to be put through urgently. Then he called the orthopaedic surgeons as it began to look more and more as though the child might have septic arthritis, which was a surgical emergency and needed to be dealt with as quickly as possible.

‘They’re going to take him up for aspiration of the hip under sedation,’ Harry explained to Cate a short while later, ‘and they’re getting started immediately on antibiotics.’ He was just writing up his admission notes when Lillian, the director of nursing, came and asked Cate if she could have a word.

‘Over here.’

Lillian gestured to a place away from the nurses’ station and as they walked up to the drug fridge and out of Harry’s earshot, Cate took a deep breath, because she knew what was coming next. ‘Why,’ Lillian asked, ‘is the student nurse sitting in the observation ward, drawing pictures with Harry’s children?’

‘Because Dr Vermont, who was supposed to be the on-call consultant this weekend, has rung in sick. Sheldon was worried about a patient the paediatricians have discharged and luckily for us Harry came in. As it turns out, it would seem that the child has septic arthritis.’

‘Then why,’ Lillian persisted, ‘is a student nurse, who should be getting clinical experience, acting as a childminder, instead of being out on the floor?’

‘Because she was already rostered on the observation ward…’ Cate was saved from having to explain herself further when she looked up and saw that Louise was signalling her to come over so that she could have a word.

‘Excuse me,’ Cate said. ‘I’m needed.’

‘We’ll discuss this later.’ Lillian said. ‘This really can’t continue.’

Cate knew it wasn’t over yet, but for now she was happy to escape a lecture and walked over to Louise.

‘What you got for us?’ Cate asked.

‘A very reluctant patient,’ Louise said.

‘So, what’s new?’

‘It’s Juan,’ Louise said, and Cate felt the colour drain from her face. ‘He didn’t want to come here but I’ve stuck to protocol and brought him to the closest Emergency. He seems okay…’ Louise frowned at Cate’s pale lips. ‘He came off a motorcycle. He’s got a few cuts and a nasty abrasion to his shoulder, but he’s had a previous spinal injury.’ Cate stood for a moment as she heard that it wasn’t whiplash they were talking about, that, in fact, Juan had broken his neck and had been paralysed for a period. She could almost hear her brain clicking as things fell into place.

‘Incomplete C5 and C6…’ Louise said, and Cate remembered her hands being removed from his neck.

‘There’s a slight weakness in his left leg,’ Louise continued, ‘but he insists that since the accident there always has been.’

Cate recalled noticing the weight on his leg as he’d run and thought she might be sick. She really knew nothing about him, yet he had insisted on finding out about her.

‘We’ve taken all precautions,’ Louise continued. ‘I said I’d come in and try to do this as discreetly as possible.’

‘Okay.’ Cate nodded. ‘Bring him in.’

If she had thought it might be hard facing Juan after last night, it was going to be close to impossible now.

‘It had to be you.’ Juan gave a tight smile as she came over. He was staring up at the ceiling and only glanced at her briefly. There were a few scratches on his face and his shirt was torn and she could see that his teeth were gritted and that he was struggling.

‘Well, they came and got the most senior nurse on.’ Cate tried for practical, tried to hold onto a strange anger that was building inside her. She was about to add that if he’d asked to be dealt with by someone he hadn’t slept with then he’d be lying on that stretcher for quite a while.

She tried to hold onto the shout that was building.

‘I don’t need to be here,’ Juan said.

‘Then you shan’t be for long,’ came her pale-lipped response.

They slid him over on a board and Cate held onto the top of his head and then covered him with a sheet to undress him, but as she went to unbutton his shirt he asked that she not.

‘I’ll just do some obs, then.’ Cate said, knowing how embarrassed she’d be if the roles were reversed. Not that she’d have been riding a motorbike through the hills with a previously broken neck.